


Junior

by Anonymous



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Incestuous Abuse, Physical Abuse, Recovery, Sexual Abuse, this is a vent fic through and through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27353500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It only happens once. It's not a big deal. It's really not.
Relationships: Henry King Jr./Yolanda Montez
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11
Collections: anonymous





	Junior

**Author's Note:**

> This is a vent fic that I'm posting because it could be cathartic for some readers. It contains the following triggers:  
> -Explicit physical child abuse,  
> -Explicit but not graphic CSA/incestuous abuse from a parent to a child (focus of the fic),  
> -Not graphic kids/young teenagers in consensual sexual situations,  
> -Child neglect,  
> -Common signs of CSA like frequent bed-wetting,  
> -Odd spacing done on purpose in the text that may cause eye strain,  
> -Some suicidal ideation.
> 
> NONE of the sexual abuse in this fic is meant to be sexual or romantic or otherwise titillating AT ALL. It's a terrible thing happening to a kid. Please stay away from this fic if you're going to find that kind of enjoyment out of it.

It only happens once. It’s not a big deal. It’s really not.

Henry’s seven, maybe, when it happens. Maybe. It’s hard to tell. It’s hard to know. But seven sounds right. It was after the cupcake. He misses his mom. He misses her so much. She died between his birthdays. He’d been so worried she’d forgotten him. He’d been so anxious, sitting at school and expecting her to come pick him up.

He thought his dad had forgotten him afterward. When it was just the two of them in the empty house. Henry tried to make himself food and couldn’t. His dad was locked in his room and wouldn’t come out when Henry called him for help. Henry only got food when he figured out how to climb on the counter to reach the microwave.

His dad comes out of the room eventually. And he smacks Henry for making a mess in the kitchen.

He’s never hit him before. He’s never done anything like that before. He’s never done that before. They just stare at each other for a moment. Henry’s too surprised to even cry even though there are tears in his eyes. They keep staring until his dad leaves. They don’t say anything to each other for a few days. Henry tries and fails to clean up the mess. The next day it’s gone. He’s pretty sure that means the maid took care of it. But he’s not sure. He doesn’t know anything for sure anymore.

His dad smacks him the next time he sees him. Across the face again. This time Henry cries. Confused. Skin stinging. He didn’t do anything wrong this time. He didn’t make a mess. And his dad leaves without saying anything. Without explaining what it is Henry did  _ wrong. _

His stomach hurts all the time now. Tight and worried about what his dad might do the next time he sees him. But he doesn’t hit him next time. Or the time after that. He doesn’t say anything, either, just meets with a man Henry technically knows who talks in low tones about how sorry he is for his loss but how he made the right choice-and Henry doesn’t know what this means-and storms from room to room in an oppressive dark cloud. Henry’s head hurts too. When his dad is angry. Which is all the time. He hurts all the time.

Henry’s birthday isn’t celebrated with cake. No candles this time. But the maid gives him a cupcake. He eats it and falls asleep with sticky hands and icing smeared on his face. It’s good.

His dad goes back to work the next day. And he doesn’t come home for a week. Henry used to think it’d be fun to be by himself. He knows better now. He wakes up alone and crying and missing his mom. He doesn’t know if his dad is coming back for him. He doesn’t know when he’s supposed to go back to school, because if his dad has work again then is he supposed to also go to school, and he doesn’t understand.

He thinks when he looks back on it-which he never does-that it can’t have happened much longer after that. His mom always said that he was her best birthday gift. Because their birthdays were so close together. Because only a few weeks later it was time for them to celebrate  _ hers.  _ That’s how they always remembered it. That’s how it went. That’s-yeah. That’s when it-yeah.

He wants to visit his mom’s grave. For her birthday. Because that’s what people do in movies. And he thinks that’s probably good. Because it’s in movies. So it’s good. And he tries to tell his dad but his dad hits him hard enough that he knocks his head into the doorframe and yells at him and it’s so loud that Henry doesn’t remember the words just the volume and the terror he feels and the burn of the tears in his eyes and he wants his mommy.

He thinks his dad is finally coming to apologize, when he knocks on the door and opens it that night. His dad’s going to apologize. He doesn’t know why he thinks that. He doesn’t know why his dad would apologize for anything ever. But he believes it. 

His dad sits on the edge of his bed and looks at him. It’s dark. But Henry’s night-light is on. So he can see him. His dad’s face all shadowed. His glasses reflect the light. Henry looks back at him and waits for him to say something.

The only thing his dad says to him that night is his mom’s name. His dad says  _ Meri, Meri, Meri  _ and Henry doesn’t understand what he’s doing when he grips Henry’s hand tightly and bends over to press their foreheads together. His dad might be crying. He’s not sure. His dad might be pulling the covers back. He’s not sure. His dad might pick him up. He’s not sure. His dad might press Henry’s face into the crook of his neck. He’s not sure. 

His d a d might hur t h i m.

H e ’ s n o t s u r e.

W h e n h i s d a d l e a ves, 

Henry stares up at the ceiling. 

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what just happened. He doesn’t know what that was supposed to be. He just knows it wasn’t an apology. And he knows it makes his head hurt to think about it. And he knows that what happened is bad. But it can’t be that bad. Because it didn’t hurt very much. His dad only held him. That’s all. That’s all. Isn’t it all?

It only happens once. It’s not a big deal. It’s really not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. Maybe if he says it to himself enough times, he’ll believe it. Maybe he can really convince himself. Because it only happens once.  _ Once.  _ That’s all. If his dad really wanted to do it, if he was really a bad person, he’d have done it more. A lot more. But he didn’t. Only once. So it’s not a big deal.

It doesn’t happen again. It only happens once. It’s not a big deal. Henry doesn’t think about it. His dad doesn’t say anything about it to him. No apology. No explanation. He doesn’t say anything. Nobody knows anything. Why would they? 

Henry goes back to school the next morning. He’s back in his old class with his old classmates who have all been with each other for a lot longer than him. Thia Burman is bossier now. Everyone’s decided they don’t like him. And then they do like him. So that’s okay. His teachers don’t ask about his bruises from when his dad grabs him and yells at him for bothering him. It’s okay because it’s better than being at home alone with his dad. 

Every night for months Henry sits up in bed and watches the door without blinking. He waits for his dad to come into the room and sit on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t know it will only happen once. He sits and he waits and nothing happens. Nobody comes. His dad doesn’t come. It’s just him alone in his room.

After awhile he just goes to sleep. It’s not easy. He keeps waking up. He wets the bed twice in one week and doesn’t tell his dad even though he doesn’t know how to wash the sheets so he just sleeps with them as they are. It happens a lot for a little while before suddenly stopping. He knows the maid knows. He knows she knows. But she doesn’t say anything to him or to his dad about it. He’s happy his dad doesn’t know. He’d be so upset.

When Henry’s somewhere between twelve and thirteen they pull a girl out of class and they hear on the news that her dad got arrested for doing bad things to her and Henry doesn’t understand why he giggles too quietly for anyone around him to hear and blinks away the sudden flood of tears. Because that didn’t happen to him. It didn’t. His dad never made him do anything like that. He never even touched him in an off-limits place with his hand. He didn’t. So why is his body upset?

He’s still in that age, in that class, when he gets his first girlfriend. Her name doesn’t matter. But he kisses her and she likes it so she kisses him and he likes it so they do other stuff they shouldn’t know about already, as young as they are.

He wets the bed again and freaks out because he’s not a stupid little baby anymore. He doesn’t cry. But he throws the sheets out entirely and sleeps on the mattress and prays it doesn’t happen again and it doesn’t. So it’s fine and it’s whatever and it’s fine and it’s whatever. 

He dumps his girlfriend and asks out another girl and hopes things will be different this time because he liked what they did but he didn’t like what happened. It doesn’t happen again but he gets bored anyway and the cycle repeats with three more girls and by the time he’s fifteen he’s set his sights on Yolanda Montez and it’s different. It’s different.

He likes Yolanda. He loves Yolanda. Henry King loves Yolanda Montez. She likes Henry. She loves Henry. Yolanda Montez loves Henry King.

Yolanda doesn’t want to have sex. Which is weird, and different, and Henry’s not sure that he likes it, but he knows he likes  _ her.  _ And they do other stuff, anyway. The stuff he did with other girls before her. He had sex with those girls too sometimes. He did things he shouldn’t have known how to at age thirteen and fourteen with other girls and he knows how it feels and it feels just okay. So it’s fine to not do it with Yolanda. 

When his dad goes on business trips Yolanda sneaks over to his house and they drink alcohol and steal his dad’s money and take his car. She’s earnest about it and he feels like he could tell her anything and he almost does but he doesn’t. Because there’s nothing to tell because even though his dad still yells at him he hasn’t hit him in forever because he’s too big now and Henry’s okay with just the yelling, he’s fine with it, he really is. She tells him things though. Secrets. He holds them. 

Yolanda tells him she wants to maybe try having sex. He says okay. Because he wants to have sex with Yolanda because she’s beautiful and he loves her and he’s thought about having sex with her before and he didn’t feel sick or anything.

Henry dreams about having sex with Yolanda while they’re in the same bed and he imagines things and he imagines things and he dreams about it and he wakes up because something feels wet and Yolanda’s moving and waking up beside him and Henry tries to scream and coughs instead.

It never happened with the other girls it never happened and Henry is going to scream for real but instead he throws up in his mouth and the smell of urine burns his nose and he throws up for real on the wood floor next to the bed and he is going to cry for real. For real.

Yolanda stares at him in the dark. He knows she’s staring and he kicks her out of the room and tears the sheets off the bed and tries to clean and he can’t and he’s starting to slip.

There is something wrong.

Henry sits up in the dark again with his nightlight glowing and his dad’s glasses shining as he lifts him and he is goi n g t o s c r e a m.

H e n r y s its up in the bathroom with Yolanda there and he is in the tub and there is cold water soaking into his skin through his clothes and it’s cold and so is her hand on his arm and his pants still burn and he looks at her and she looks at him and he can see that she knows something. And he throws up again for even more real. Because she knows something. And he wants to drink rubbing alcohol until he dies.

Yolanda knows something. Yolanda knows something. Yolanda knows something. She’s going to make him say it.

He repeats his mantra.

It only happens once. It’s not a big deal.

It only happens once. It’s not a big deal. 

It only happens once. It’s not a big deal. 

Yolanda disagrees.

Henry stops drowning. 

**Author's Note:**

> And then canon happens except Henry kills his dad in the tunnels. The end. 
> 
> I will probably orphan this fic in the near future, I just am hanging onto it now on Anonymous because I want to make sure the comments are civil and respectful.


End file.
